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When I attended school we had number 2 pencils, college ruled lined paper and very heavy books. My son, now in the 9th grade, has an iPad with interactive eBooks and apps and a Learning Management System (LMS) called Sch oology.

There are some other amazing tools, too, and I plan to write entries on some of them in other posts. In this post I am going to discuss Schoology. There are other LMS solutions available. Schoology is the LMS used by my son’s school and it is one of the most popular ones available. Schoology is a free web-based learning management system (LMS) built on a social network. The “free” may have something to do with its popularity, but many schools are opting for the paid iteration for its additional features.

So what the heck is an LMS and why do schools use them?

Think of ERP and CRM in businesses — big applications that put out tentacles into all the various departments to link processes together for efficiency. That is precisely the thinking being LMS for schools. Students who login to Schoology through the internet (browser) or through an iPad app see a list of their classes and assignments which may be due. Teachers can upload assignments for the students to access, and the student can do the work in an app on the iPad and then choose to save it to the Schoology “dropbox” (a cloud storage area) where the teacher can retrieve it. No more lost homework!

No excuse of “I forgot what my homework was” either.

Students can also share files and create messages (ala Facebook) on a school topic for discussions.

A nosy mom (like me) can check to see what my son is assigned and if he has turned it in yet.